Let everything happen to you

no feeling is final

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

I honestly cannot think of a better quote to represent the start of 2025.

This is where I am.

This is where we are.

We can’t run from it. We can’t hide from it. We can’t ignore it anymore.

It is so fragile right now. Being human feels so very fragile. I think it always is. But we are seeing and experiencing this truth with greater urgency.

So much is falling away. People. Places. Things.

What remains after it goes? It is a question. That brings me to the story of nature. The milkweed pods have all split and dried open. The seeds have also flown to land where they may. Beneath the shell, the seed. Always. New possibilities. New life. New stories.

I come in contact with other words, answers in response to my wondering: What remains after things fall away?

Community. Grace. Love. Beauty. God.

Kindness.

Connection.

Belonging.

I don’t have too many words.

Beauty and Terror.

Grief and Joy.

Love.

Reach out to your neighbors.

Find your community.

Don’t isolate.

We’re in this together.

Some views from my world —

Yesterday’s close encounter with Cooper Hawk on the fence where I work with children. He let me get so so close, as he devoured his meal. I could hear the bones crunching as he pulled away the flesh. Was quite a moment.

Rilke’s words in greater entirety below:

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand. 

- Ranier Maria Rilke, Book of Hours